Analytical instruments — overview

This section covers the laboratory- and wellsite-grade analytical instruments that act as the exploration program’s quantitative reference layer behind faster, less specific field sensors.

Pages, in reading order:

1. Gas chromatography — separates a gas sample in time so that a thermal-conductivity, reduction-gas, or pulsed-discharge detector can quantify H2 against the atmospheric background. The reduction-gas and pulsed-discharge detectors are the only technology class in this wiki that reliably resolves sub-ppm H2.
2. Mass spectrometry — weighs ionized gas molecules for confirmatory composition and, uniquely, isotopic fingerprinting (δD-H2 plus companion helium- and methane-isotope ratios) that distinguishes deep-crustal, microbial, and drilling-derived hydrogen.
3. Mud-gas logging — applies those same detector chemistries at the rig to monitor the whole borehole in real time while drilling. The only during-drilling H2 measurement, but one that must first be verified H2-capable (many rigs’ flame-ionization detectors are inherently unable to detect H2) and corrected for the hydrogen that the drilling process itself produces.
4. Dissolved H2 in groundwater & formation water — H2 physically in solution in groundwater, spring water, or formation brine: a high-information but artifact-prone signal that reads microbial redox state rather than a passive Henry’s-law equilibrium with a deep source.